“I consider it another useful and positive initiative and I thank the regional councilors who intended to promote it for having stimulated a further moment of discussion and presence regarding the issue of differentiated autonomy. Politics is also this, these are battles that must be fought in institutional settings, but they are battles that must be brought above all outside the rooms of the ‘palaces’ because it is necessary to engage with the citizens as much as possible, and to make them understand concretely what the negative effects of differentiated autonomy are. It seems to me that this activity is already bearing excellent fruit, compared to the signatures collected throughout Italy at various stands and in other useful initiatives to make it clear how much the issue of differentiated autonomy is becoming perceived in a concrete way by the citizens”. Thus the Mayor of the Metropolitan City and of Reggio Calabria, Joseph Falcomata, participating in the sit-in protest, in front of the Regional Council, promoted by many Calabrian mayors, against the law on differentiated autonomy and in support of the proposal for an abrogative referendum, currently being discussed by the regional commission ‘Institutional Affairs’ of the Regional Council.
“The second thing I note – adds Falcomatà – is that as we hoped and as we have always said, that of differentiated autonomy is not a battle of the South against the North, it is certainly a law that penalizes the South, but we are finding thousands of signatures also in other regions of the North, one above all in Lombardy. This – he concludes – is evidence of how effectively the harmful, negative effects of differentiated autonomy are perceived as such also in other parts of our country”.